Posted on 9 September 2013

At its core, my job is to collect and share stories.
Those stories are about lots of things. Sometimes it’s controversial political decisions. Sometimes it’s the weather. Sometimes it’s somebody saw an emu on a road where emus really don’t belong.
Loosely, there are three key criteria that help get a story on the show. First, it has to be interesting. Second, because we are a regional show, we view things through a regional lens- do listeners in northern B.C. care about this? Why? And finally, it has to be timely. Why are we doing this story now?
That last criteria makes a lot of sense. We are, after all, a current affairs show. People want to hear things that reflect the current state of things. They want to know what’s new.
But sometimes it’s frustrating. You’ll hear an amazing story from someone… and it happened three years ago. Sometimes it can be repurposed, but most of the time it just doesn’t fit.
Enter “The Story Exchange”. This a new series we’re airing on Daybreak that aims to take those great tales and rescue them from the “not newsy” column. Basically, if it meets the criteria of “interesting” and “northern”, we want to get it out there.
I’m excited for this series. I’ve already recorded a couple of interviews with people who have great stories that I don’t think would ever fit on the show in a traditional sense. Yet they are fully entertaining and, in a way, give people a fuller sense of the northern B.C. “experience”. It’s also, in my mind, the pinnacle of what radio can do- great storytelling, strong first-person narratives.
You can find the Story Exchange here and here. I hope you enjoy it.

Filed under: CBC, radio